Employment Law & Unpaid Wages
Employers must pay their employees wages according to their employment agreement. If an employer does not do so, the employee may sue to recover the wages. Even if a business is having financial problems, employers must still pay their employees the wages they owe them or risk a lawsuit or official complaint.
Other People Are Reading
-
Willfulness
-
Employers cannot willfully withhold employees' pay; that is, they cannot purposely refuse to pay their employees, and if they do so, their employees or former employees may sue. If an employer willfully withholds an employee's pay, as of 2011 the employee may seek up to double damages in a lawsuit, while if the withholding was accidental, the employee may seek only the amount of wages that were not paid.
Statute of Limitations
-
Under the Fair Labor Standards Act, employees have two years after the employer's failure to pay wages to sue or take other action to recover their wages. If they can prove that the employer willfully withheld wages, employees have three years to take action to recover their lost wages. Employers may be compelled to continue repaying back wages even if the statute of limitations expires before the unpaid wages are completely repaid.
-
Alternatives
-
If an employer does not pay her employees in a timely manner, employees may contact the United States Department of Labor or their state's department of labor to file a complaint. They may also sue the employer privately. Employees may take only one of these actions; if the state or federal government takes action on the employee's behalf, the employee may not also sue privately. Prior to filing a complaint, an employee should send a letter to the employer by certified mail listing the amount of wages the employer owes her and asking for redress.
Lawsuits
-
If an employee files a private lawsuit, he may recover the amount of money his employer owes him (doubled if the employer willfully withheld wages.) Employment lawyer Rebecca Ary reports that employers often settle such lawsuits out of court because attorney's fees and other court costs can be far more than the amount of wages the employee claims the employer owes him.
-
